Diane Chamberlain - The Good Father

“Since when?” he asked. Not exactly the response I’d wanted. But I thought back.

“Since that first night we talked on the phone. Remember? How you said talking would keep me from thinking about my heart and you from thinking about—”

“I love you, too,” he interrupted, and suddenly everything was different.

I missed tons of school that fall because I was weak and kept getting sick. My father was afraid every time I left the house for “the germ factory,” which is what he’d started calling my school. Travis was driving by then, this little old Honda of his mother’s, and he’d pick up assignments and books for me and bring them to our condo after school. My father didn’t like it. At first, I thought it was because the books and papers were coming from the germ factory, but then I realized he didn’t like Travis and me being alone together. Daddy’d had no problem with Travis when he looked like a harmless, skinny little kid. Now, though, he looked like a man, and suddenly Daddy wasn’t crazy about him. When Travis finally asked me to a movie, my father said I couldn’t go. Daddy and I were sitting in our den. I was doing my math homework on the sofa while he answered email and he didn’t even bother to look at me when he told me no.

“Dad,” I said, looking up from my work, “we’re just friends. It’s no big deal.”

He took off his reading glasses and set them on the desk. Whenever the glasses came off, I knew we were in for a long conversation about what I could and couldn’t do. It had been that way for years. “Honey,” he said, “one of these days you’re going to have a new heart and you’ll be able to live a full and active life, but until then, staying healthy and taking it easy are your top priorities, and—”

“Sitting in a movie with my best friend isn’t going to tax my heart,” I argued. I rarely fought back. I’d been taught not to argue by both my father and my doctor. They’d taught me to avoid conflict and stress for the sake of my failing heart. I was supposed to breathe slowly and repeat the words peace and calm in my head over and over again until the urge to fight passed. But some things were worth fighting about and this was one of them.

“You may consider him your best friend,” Daddy said, “but I know how boys think and that’s not the way he’s thinking about you.”

“Yes, it is.” The lie felt so natural to me. I wasn’t going to let my father screw this up.

“Boys and girls can’t stay friends when they become men and women,” my father said. “Hormones come into play and it’s impossible. Travis is the wrong boy for you to get involved with, anyway.”

“First of all, we’re not ‘involved,’” I said, although when my father said that word, all I could think about was holding Travis’s hand in the movie and kissing him afterward. “Second, there’s nobody who cares about me more than he does. Besides you,” I added quickly.

“I was a boy and even the nicest boy has one thing on his mind.” My father swiveled his chair to face me. “But even if … all that wasn’t a concern, I still wouldn’t want you with Travis. It’s time to cool down that friendship, honey. He could drag you down.”

“Are you talking about money? It’s not like we’re rich and he’s poor.”

“We’re not rich, but we’re very comfortable,” he said. “Travis … isn’t. I doubt he ever will be. It’s not his fault. I know he hasn’t had the advantages you’ve had, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s not the sort of person I want my daughter to end up with. So there’s no point in giving him any encouragement. And that’s that.”

“That’s so unfair!” My cheeks burned. I felt the heat in them as I slammed my math book onto the coffee table. My father was instantly on his feet, holding his hands out in a calming motion.

“Settle down,” he said. “Settle down. You know better than to argue—”

“You’re always telling me to treat people equally and all that and then you say that just because he has less money than we do, I can’t go out with him. He’s smart, Daddy. He wants to be a biologist someday.”

“Listen, honey.” He sat down next to me on the sofa and put an arm around my shoulders. “I don’t want you going out with anyone right now, okay? You don’t understand how serious your condition is.”

“You’re upsetting my heart more than Travis ever would,” I said.

“Then stop arguing with me.” His voice was so annoyingly calm. “You have to trust that I know what’s best for you right now. If you want, I can have Dr. McIntyre talk to you about this. He’ll agree with me. Until you can get a new heart, you need to—”

“To stay locked up in my room without friends or ever doing anything fun.”

“You need to be careful. That’s all I was going to say.”

I knew it was time to back down. I could feel my heart hurting, though it was more like a heart ache than anything to do with my condition. I would find a way to see Travis. I would just have to hide what I was doing from my father. I’d never done anything behind his back before, but he wasn’t leaving me much of a choice.

So, I did go to the movies with Travis. I told him we needed to keep it from my father because he was worried about my health and didn’t want me to date. I didn’t tell him Daddy didn’t want me going out with him . I’d never hurt him that way. Travis was sweet and sensitive, which was why I’d loved him back when he was a scrawny little boy and why I was falling into something deeper with him now. He wasn’t like the other guys I knew who were all about drinking and hooking up with girls. The guys my old girlfriends hung out with and drooled over and talked about day and night.

It was amazing to sit next to Travis in the theater, holding his hand, feeling electricity between us where there used to be just the warmth of friendship. In his car, he kissed me and made me feel a little crazy with the way he ran his hands down my body over my clothes, and I thought: I could die tomorrow, so there’s no way I’m going to deprive myself of this today . I decided right then that I was going to squeeze every drop of living into my life that I could.

Every single drop.

I’D BEEN LIVING IN MY BRIER CREEK APARTMENT for nearly a week when I discovered a coffee shop tucked into the far corner of the shopping center’s vast parking lot. The tan stucco building looked very old, as though it had been there for decades and the shopping center had grown up around it, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. It was simply designed to look old to give it some personality. The shop’s name was painted on a board that hung above the wood-and-glass front doors and I couldn’t read it until I was nearly on top of it. JumpStart . I walked inside and was transported from the bustling parking lot with its zillions of cars and the illusion of squeaky-clean newness into a warm space that felt almost like a living room. The furniture was organized into intimate little groupings set apart from one another by bookcases and a fireplace—not burning, since it was still very warm outside. Then there was the long counter with a menu made up of pastries and salads and coffees and teas. Music played softly in the background. It was something jazzy, which I didn’t usually like, but I didn’t really care about music one way or another anymore. Music, books, politics, art, sex—what did any of it matter? It was all so insignificant to me now.

Half the chairs and tables and leather sofas were occupied, mostly by people my age typing on their computers or doing paperwork. Three young women shared a table and they were laughing at something on a computer screen. A man was talking about real estate with an older couple. I heard the words town house and too many stairs . Another couple was in the midst of an intense conversation, an open bible on the table between them. I knew the moment I walked inside that I’d be spending a lot of time there. I felt anonymous and I liked the feeling.